Ford came shortly. He ignored Mrs. Jakes and the trooper entirely and spoke to the Kafir only. His manner made a privacy from which the others were excluded.
"I say," he said, with a manner of trouble. "She 's still in a faint. Very white, not breathing much, and rather cold. She looks bad."
The Kafir nodded. "You could n't take her temperature, of course," he said. "There hadn't been any fresh hemorrhage?"
"No," replied Ford. "I asked Fat Mary. She was there, and she said there 'd been no blood. I say—is it very dangerous?"
He was a layman; flesh and blood—blood particularly—were beyond his science and within the reach only of his pity and his fear. He had stood by Margaret's bed and looked down on her; he had bent his ear to her lips to make sure that she breathed and that her white immobility was not death. His hand had felt her forehead and been chilled by the cold of it; and he had tried inexpertly to find her pulse and failed. Fat Mary, holding a candle, had illuminated his researches, grinning the while, and had answered his questions humorously, till she realized that she was in some danger of being assaulted; and then she had lied.
He made his appeal to the Kafir as to a man of his own kind.
"I 'm afraid it 's not much use," he said—"what I can tell you, I mean. But do you think there 's much danger?"
Kamis shook his head. "There should n't be," he answered. "I wish I could see her. Cold, was she? Yes; temperature subnormal. I could cup,—but you could n't. Do you think you could make a hypodermic injection, if I showed you how?"
"I could do any blessed thing," declared Ford, fervently.
"Digitalin and adrenalin," mused Kamis. "He won't have those, though. Do you know if he 's got any ergotin?"